


"Fuck it, I'm adopting her," said John Gaius, not knowing the paperwork wasn't necessary

by Naamah_Beherit



Series: Nine Houses of Madness, One Millennial to Rule Them All [1]
Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Gideon Nav/Dulcinea Septimus, Chance Meetings, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:35:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26588236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naamah_Beherit/pseuds/Naamah_Beherit
Summary: On the day of her biggest triumph, Gideon Nav was running late.***A story in which Gideon, a highly distinguished Cohort lieutenant, saves the day—and the girl—and then gets stuck in the lift ofThe Ereboswith a man feeding her peanuts as if they have all the time in the world. They haven't, but if he doesn't mind, then why should she?
Relationships: John Gaius | Necrolord Prime & Gideon Nav
Series: Nine Houses of Madness, One Millennial to Rule Them All [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2111037
Comments: 51
Kudos: 180





	"Fuck it, I'm adopting her," said John Gaius, not knowing the paperwork wasn't necessary

**Author's Note:**

> How long does a lift ride take on a spaceship? I haven't a clue, but I didn't let it stop me.
> 
> Enjoy!

On the day of her biggest triumph, Gideon Nav was running late.

Well, maybe not _the_ biggest, because nothing would ever top her explosive, flashy as fuck, and—most of all—successful escape from the Ninth House, but that belonged in the past Gideon had buried deep in the ground, set on fire, poured acid on what remained, doused it in concrete, and pissed on it to complete the picture. Gideon’s current life was that of a soon-to-be Cohort captain with enough medals to decorate the whole of Drearburh. Not that she was ever going back, but it did make her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Granted, it might have been Dulcinea Septimus’s doing, too.

The duchess was the sole reason for both Gideon’s glory and tardiness. The glory had been hard-earned, and the tardiness… Well. If Gideon had anything to say in it, it would not be a one-time occurrence.

Who would have thought: the hero did get the girl after all. Ortus Nigenad would have quacked in joy, flipped the table in exuberance that would burn his entire supply of energy for a few days, and then wrote at least two new books of _The Noniad_. Everyone but his mother would have despaired.

Ah. Good ol’ Ortus. Sometimes Gideon almost missed him. Then she always woke up from whatever nightmare her brain spewed at her.

Anyway, the hero—namely, Gideon Nav, the first person from the Ninth House to join the Cohort in decades—saved and got the girl—in this case, Dulcinea Septimus, duchess of Rhodes—and was now going to be appropriately acknowledged for her heroic act. She’d rather get the second date, but alas, duty called.

And so, buttoning up her shirt as she went, Gideon strutted towards the main lift of _The Erebos_. For a ship so huge and so brand new, everyone in the crew seemed to be as constipated as the falling-apart-from-old-age nuns of the Ninth. Still, they had come to their aid after Gideon’s captain called for it, and that at least had earned them a cookie. That, and the faces everyone in their strike unit had made upon coming on site and seeing Gideon ankle-deep in green goo and carcasses of mutated space wasps. Or whatever that shit had been. She hadn’t bothered asking before going at them with her two-hander and certainly hadn’t cared after—not when Dulcinea Septimus had looked at her with stars in her eyes, and extended a frail hand for Gideon to take.

Gideon loved the feeling of a girl’s hand in hers. She was weak like that. Sue her.

The lift took its sweet time. Then some more and more and _more_ , until Gideon felt like taking the stairs wherever they might be. If she wanted to be later than she already was, she’d have stayed longer in Dulcinea’s quarters. The wasps had rendered both the duchess’s and Gideon’s unit’s ships unusable, and so they were forced to hitch a ride aboard _The Erebos_. The atmosphere was just as lively as it had been in the Ninth House, but at least the beds were better.

Soft beds? The girl? Gideon would suffer the funeral mood for those any day.

The lift dinged upon its belated arrival. There was only one man inside it, munching on peanuts with abandon, and so Gideon got in and…

Where was the circus supposed to take place?

The lift’s door closed. It took off and continued its journey to wherever the peanut guy was going. Gideon allowed herself a moment of internal panic and accepted the fact that her captain was going to relegate her to toilet cleaning duty despite the commendations she was going to receive.

“Fuck,” she said to herself. Softly, mindful of the peanut guy. Just in case _The Erebos’s_ crewmen were delicate on the ears as much as they were brooding and apparently scared of the space wasps.

Which, okay, was a bit justified. Those wasps were hideous as fuck. Gideon might have thrown up at the first sight, but then she sucked it up and gave them hell. She didn’t spend her entire life watching Crux and the withering contingent of the Ninth’s nuns to now fear mutated space insects. Or whatever they were. Gideon hadn’t bothered to take a closer look. All that mattered was that they had bled and died when skewered on her two-hander.

The man behind her cleared his throat. She glanced at him and found the bag of peanuts extended towards her. “Do you want some?” he asked as if offering people peanuts was a normal thing to do. Maybe it was and Gideon simply wouldn’t know; there had been no peanuts in the Ninth House.

The Ninth House lived on bones, devotion, and Harrow’s insufferable personality.

Gideon grabbed a handful of peanuts and stuffed her mouth with all of them at once. “Fanks,” she mumbled around them. The peanut guy smiled softly at her, but his attention was unwavering. It gave her the creeps.

Gideon wasn’t into ordinary looking men whose eyes had to have been tattooed black. There was no way that shit was natural.

“Sure thing. Don’t you know where you want to go, lieutenant…?”

Gideon swallowed the rest of the peanuts. “Nav,” she said and straightened her back. All her titles were hard earned, and she was proud as fuck of every single one of them. “Gideon Nav of the fifth infantry unit.”

“Gideon,” he echoed after her. “Huh. What a coincidence. I know a Gideon. He looks a bit like you.”

She shrugged. The universe was vast. She could hardly be the only Gideon in it.

“So. Don’t you know where you’re going?”

The lift stuttered to a stop. Its door opened, then closed again as it resumed its slow ascent. Numbers on the pad trickled by one by one. From the looks of it, they were going to stop at all of them. Gideon raised a brow. “Don’t you?”

“Oh, I’m well aware where I’m supposed to be right now,” the peanut guy said with the air of nonchalance Gideon was quite frankly envious of. “I simply didn’t feel like going there. Still don’t.”

“Ah.” Gideon knew the feeling. She had lived with it for seventeen years and numerous escape attempts before the last one finally bore fruit. She hoped Harrow and Crux were still fuming. “Shit happens, I guess.”

“It does,” the peanut guy agreed far too cheerfully. “Where are you going then, lieutenant Nav?”

“To the medal ceremony. And with everything that was going on—” which was Dulcinea’s hand wrapped around Gideon’s and a promise of things unspeakable, “—I kind of… forgot to ask my captain where I was supposed to go. It’s a ship, it can’t be _that_ difficult, right?”

“Depends on the ship, I’d say,” said the peanut guy, unhelpfully. He smiled; if not for the eyes, it would have looked perfectly normal on his ordinary face. Being as things were, though, it only made him look creepier. “But you’re in luck, lieutenant. That’s where I’m going as well.”

Oh, _hell no_. “Thanks for the peanuts, admiral,” Gideon said, because it was better to give him a higher rank than insult him with a lower. Was the admiralty board going to present at the ceremony? Hell if she knew, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious. This was a huge-arse ship, after all.

His eyebrows shot up comically high. Then, oh so slowly, he grinned. Now _that_ looked more like it. “Anytime, lieutenant. What’s the occasion? Do you happen to know?”

“Don’t you?”

“Not really,” he admitted with unbridled joy. “There’s a lot going on. Planets to conquer. Reports to read. All sorts of things.”

If Gideon treated her job like he did, she would have been dismissed on the spot. But then again: she was merely a lieutenant, and he was someone important. Important people had privileges. “Commendation, for one. And a promotion, hopefully.”

“Commendation… oh, for the unit that fought the Heralds?”

“Is that what they call those ugly space wasps that look like a love child of the monster of the deep space and the marshal of the Ninth House?”

He blinked. Then he burst out laughing, bending in two as if Gideon delivered the most hilarious joke he’d ever heard. And she wasn’t even trying to.

“The marshal of—”

“If those things saw him, they would’ve legged it faster than you can say ‘The Reverend Pain in the Arse Harrowhark Nonagesimus’.”

“You’re from the Ninth House,” he said, not asked. She bristled at it, took a deep breath and let the anger dissipate like her miserable life had almost two years ago. Nowadays, she could look at it, show it her middle finger, and walk away humming the filthiest Cohort song under her breath.

“Used to be, and not by choice.”

“I understand,” the peanut guy said though he couldn’t have, because Gideon wasn’t in the mood of sharing her tragic backstory with strangers. Today was the day for celebrations and the appreciation of womanly charms. “In that case, I’ll believe your words, lieutenant. Perhaps I should, ah, _suggest_ someone to enlist the marshal and see if his presence truly is enough to scare the Heralds away.”

“A good sword also works.”

“A good—pardon me, what?”

“A good sword,” Gideon repeated. “Swing it well and boom, there goes a wasp’s head.”

He stared at her. And stared and stared and _stared_ until Gideon looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was standing behind her. But they were alone in the lift, she and the peanut guy and this unspeakably heavy silence between them. It reminded her of waiting with bated breath which nun would die during the morning prayer.

Then, “You… fought a Herald with a sword.”

“Yep.”

“And… survived?”

“What, like it’s hard?”

He opened his mouth and closed with an audible _clank_ of teeth against teeth. That must have hurt. “So that’s what today’s commendations are for,” he said in a tone befitting finding out that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything wasn’t ‘Our Lord and Saviour Necrolord Prime, the God of the Nine Houses, the Emperor Undying’. “A Cohort lieutenant who fought Heralds and emerged victorious even though she wasn’t supposed to. I really should’ve read the memo.”

“Yeah,” Gideon nodded sagely even though she never touched them herself, “I’ve heard those are helpful.”

The peanut guy hummed, his fucked-up eyes locked on her with focus growing beyond what was humanly possible. “Did you know,” he started in a tone that clearly implied Gideon didn’t know shit, “that the Lyctors have a hard time standing up to fight Heralds? It’s the fear, you see. No one’s immune to it.”

She shrugged. “Well, not my fault they’re useless. Seventeen years of living with Crux on the Ninth really boosts your tolerance for all things ugly.”

“Those are the Emperor’s Saints you’re insulting, lieutenant Nav.”

“Ah, yes, my bad, many apologies.” She hesitated for a moment; then, because it never hurt to go over the top, added, “All hail?”

The peanut guy shook his head. He was still staring at Gideon as if she’d grown a second head that claimed to be the Emperor, or at the very least a Lyctor. She smiled at him, because that always softened girls’ hearts and perhaps it would work on him as well.

His mouth twitched. Then he sighed like a star going off would, and tapped the pad by the door. The lift sped up. Only one number was displayed now, quickly approaching.

Gideon looked at him, raising a brow as high as she could. It had always riled Harrow up the wall whenever Gideon—

Nope. She wasn’t thinking about that damned bone witch. She liked her current Harrowless life and the peace of mind that came with it.

The peanut guy smiled at her again, which was very unlike Harrow. “I need to see the complete list of your deeds, lieutenant. You can’t blame me for curiosity after telling me about the Heralds.”

“Eh, and here I thought it was my amazing personality.”

“It _is_ something, I won’t argue about that.”

The lift came to a stop with a screech. For a ship so new, it shouldn’t be making noises that wouldn’t sound out of place in Drearburh.

Maybe the entire budget had gone to ensure _The Erebos_ would blind everything and everyone with its shiny plates.

The door opened. Behind them stretched an audience hall, filled to the brim with Cohort officers and soldiers. Somewhere in the distance, at the bottom of the stairs leading to a platform on which an ornate throne stood, were Gideon’s captain, fuming, and Dulcinea Septimus, with her hand raised as if she wanted to wave at Gideon but thought better of it. Overall, there were more people here than in the entire Ninth House.

They all jumped to their feet at the mere glance at her, which was nice, then bowed, which was cool as fuck. And in perfect unison, they bellowed, “BLESSED BE OUR EMPEROR, THE KING UNDYING, THE HEART AND MIND OF THE NINE HOUSES!”

At a pace that made Harrow’s ancient aunts appear like demons of speed in comparison, Gideon turned towards the peanut guy. He smiled at her with a particular kind of detachment of someone too tired with this shit.

“Well,” Gideon said in the silence that followed. “Fuck me, I guess.”

“Ugh. Thanks, but no, thanks. You’re too young for me, kid. But I am incredibly curious what more you’re capable of if killing the Heralds seemingly came so easy to you.” He shook the bag of peanuts in her direction again. “Want some more?”

Gideon’s mind, still running in circles around the fact of having been stuck in the lift with the Emperor—the Emperor! She had never wanted to meet the Emperor, what the hell!—shook her head this time.

“I’ve got biscuits, too,” he told her in a rather conspiratorial whisper. Gideon sighed, looked at the crowd gawking at them without remorse, and gave them the widest and most shit-eating grin she was capable of at the moment.

If only Harrow could see her now. She would shriek like those Heralds had.

“So, lieutenant Nav? A cup of tea and some biscuits later, once we get the boring thing out of the way?”

It wasn’t like Gideon could refuse the Emperor, couldn’t she? “All right,” she said and slid the glasses onto her face, because if she were to go, she would go in style. “But only because of the biscuits.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/naamahbeherit), [Tumblr](http://naamah-beherit.tumblr.com/), and [Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.social/naamahbeherit) if you'd like to say hello!


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